Posts Tagged With: commitment

Leading the former 365 Club Welcome Walk at the Gathering one year, I asked each participant to take a candle off the table that resembled the size of their ability to commit. It allowed each to be honest with themselves and to consider a healthy perspective about what they wanted to achieve and the time they wished to devote to the daily experience they wished to keep.

It helped because it wasn’t a measurement of competition, rather a dedication to what each wanted to accomplish in being a part. Some candles were tall, others were thick and the variety helped all to find the right fit for their commitment. Like the stories that were shared when we were independently connected online and in email, lighting the candles off of each other reminded how the flame of any good intention continues and as we completed the experience, the sharing confirmed a call for what our existence was all about.

Annually we can dedicate, connect and confirm, though the message was clear, keeping the light alive was up to the sharing from one to another.

I used to walk the labyrinth daily, I did this for years and wasn’t at all sure of why I made a daily commitment of it. Yet, something about taking a walk somewhere in my day gave me a reference point for being present to what I was to experience or what I had experienced. Before I went to sleep, I would journal a bit and the experience of the labyrinth always seemed to find its way into the writing, explaining or narrating my day as if had been part of the design.

I am not sure why I stopped walking daily, though know it was a different time when I did. I realized in my regular walking, I wasn’t able to go to sleep or feel complete in my day until I had a recap of it by walking the labyrinth. It was never an obligation, just something I looked forward to.

Now, I am not so frequent, though do realize that there are times when I just want to regroup and I find myself stopping in the midst of the day to trace a finger labyrinth in the air. Short and sweet it does the job of giving me a moment to check in.

Over the years there have been times when I wondered why I had made such a commitment and what it was truly offering me on a daily basis. These would be normal questioning of anyone who makes a commitment to a daily practice, as I have many of them.

What I have noticed is that each practice and commitment walks with me through the living of my life. They make me consider, remind me of what is important and bring me into the moment. The more I walk in this way, the more I realize the moment is not something to come to, rather it is already present and the pause is the moment for gratitude. In the labyrinth, it might be the moment of the center or maybe the beginning or ending.

An everyday walk of the labyrinth then becomes an everyday expression of gratitude.

Happy Fall and welcome to the month of October. Named for the eighth month of which it once was in the Julian calendar, October is our tenth month in the year of your life.

We are daily walkers and in this month, ask what makes you committed to the path? In a world of instant gratification and urgency, how is it that we create value in being attended to our purpose or promise each day?

What do we hold important in our walk and how is it the same or different in the other things we do in our lives for meaning? It says something about character when we can make a devotion to ourselves to listen, learn and reflect and beyond the questions of the curious mind, there is also appreciation and gratitude reflections to ourselves for what we not only say we find important, but actually follow through and stay connected to the invested time we make for what matters.

The pumpkin knows its season to be in the fall harvest and it yields both nutrition and savory sensation as well as a time of remembrance. Every year this time shows up and if planted, the pumpkin arrives to serve the purpose it was planted for and perhaps a little creativity along the way.

Without the intent and active nurturing components it would not arrive on schedule if at all. This is purely a seasonal expectation, though imagine cultivating the pumpkin for everyday appreciation? That is how it is with the seeds we plant and care enough to sow, when we have a value for the promise it holds, we commit the time and care to see it through.

May the blissful beginnings of a New Year yield positive vibrations that build from the beginning of this path that lies unknown before us and extends purposefully in the steps we create along the way searching our many goals at the center.

It is said that there are many diversions and changes flowing in the air that will continue this year to perhaps unsettle us from the normal and maybe to engage us with new possibilities in our evolving lives. We tend to be resistant to change, even when we know it is going to happen anyway. Change is life’s way of saying that it moves and grows. It is our message to listen to, absorb and comprehend somewhat to act in some way to obtain a result. Sometimes we are paying attention to this process and sometimes we are not.

On this path of a new year, we tend to pay attention on the day of the event. Yet our tool of the labyrinth allows us the opportunity to pay attention everyday, particularly if you are in this club.

Perhaps this year we also find a voice to communicate what we are paying attention to and share in what we receive. There is always someone out there that would benefit when we extend a hand or an idea.

For this year, I simply breath into the bliss that exists in the world because I am paying attention today and ask that in all the whirl of change, we can find it situated here in the center of the labyrinth as if it were the center of us. May we all walk into the bliss with each daily commitment to walk this year and may we walk out a little more full from the experience.

Enjoy the wild and wooly bliss that fills our year of 2015, and may we all make it a more fulfilling experience for being in it. Happy New Year walkers!